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The Oath of the Goat – An Interview With Goath

Some bands mean what they say. They live it. You can hear it in the music, the integrity gives the songs an extra level of power. Many artists dribble on about Satan for the spooky image, to get more fans or attention from a scene that drinks up any band with a remotely scary t-shirt. Many bands ape Darkthrone and Mayhem when they weren’t even out of shitting their nappies by the time Ravishing Grimness dropped.

Enter GOATH: Exploding into existence in a blaze of blasphemic glory as 2015 slowly collapsed into its grave, the Germans have now unleashed their first full-length assault ‘Luciferian Goath Ritual’ and they couldn’t be more sincere. No carefully sculpted pseudo-image here: They play no-bullshit black death designed purely to whip you into a frenzy as a fist in the face of God. They’re inspired by the ’90s scene because that’s where they’re from. And they sing about Satanism because that’s what they live philosophically; its what they know and feel in their core.

And their album is very, very good.

Released through Ván Records it’s a raw, ferocious riff-fest; even just these three tracks I’ve posted don’t do the primal intensity and dynamism of this album justice. Get it and listen; in the meantime, bassist and vocalist Muerte has generously sat down to chat with us about their new release and much more. Read on below.

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Hi! Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us. You’ve recently released your debut album ‘Luciferian Goath Ritual” and it’s an absolute smasher, possessed with an incredible dark energy… I can’t listen to it without wanting to either violently headbang, scream at the night sky or hurl myself through a wall. I believe you recorded it live, was this the effect you were going for?

– Hi! Thanks for the words. Yes indeed, we wanted to catch the atmosphere and I guess it worked well.

It must have been intense in the studio. Do you have any crazy stories from recording?

– Well, we recorded the album like our demo in the Goath rehearsal room with a lot of alcohol and so on. We recorded the whole album three times and took the best, intense and possessed version of each song. Not really crazy stories happened, we were just drunk and when I finished my part of the vocals, I felt immediately asleep cause of too much booze. I can’t even remember the whole vocal recordings.

The atmospheric intro to ‘All Became Nothing’ is great, sets the scene perfectly for the carnage that follows. Were the sounds taken from any particular piece of relevant art, or were they created in studio?

– Most of the intro sounds were samples of the movie Catacombs and some sounds of real exorcisms. Catacombs is a horror movie with a great atmosphere. It’s the sound of hell, and hell is unleashed when All Became Nothing starts.

The riffs on this album absolutely slaughter. When you write, do you start with a great riff and work from there, or is there a different process involved?

– Thanx. I’m always jamming some riffs until I think I found a good one for a perfect start of a song. I record it, wait some days, listen to it again and continue writing more riffs for the track. Goathammer and Serrator listen to the song when it’s finished and I guess that’s nearly the same way Goathammer writes songs. We meet at our rehearsal room when songs are ready and see how they work.

Goath has been active since 2015 but some of your members have been actively calling forth the sounds of hell for quite some time. What events lead to the creation of Goath?

– To say it simple, we felt not really fully occupied with the bands we are and were involved. We had some plans and visions, but it was hard or nearly impossible to realize these visions. I had the idea for a band like Goath months or even years before I told Goathammer about my thoughts. He was 100% into the concept from the beginning and we found an excellent drummer in Serrator who also shares our ideas and visions about our blackened death metal.

I’d like to delve a little deeper into your personal belief system, if I might. You can hear a deep sincerity in these paeans to the Lightbringer, it’s obvious you guys live what you say. Can you elaborate a little on your own path, and what it means to you?

– Worshipping Satan, Chaos & Death is a very important part of my life and I actually don’t talk much about my views with other people, ’cause it’s a very personal thing. I’m not a person who wants to tell people what they should believe in or not. My interest in the dark arts started when I was a teenager. It’s like a dark aura which surrounds me all the time. I can feel it when I write songs, it’s present when we rehearse and when we play live. We are surrounded by his light!

What do you think of black metal straying away from satanic themes? Do you believe it can be true black metal without a satanic flame at the core?

– Black metal is the music of Satan and most of the black, death and even thrash or classic metal bands I listen to keep the satanic flames alive. It can sound like true black metal, if it’s only about the music of course, but black metal is so much more than just music. I can’t and I don’t wanna listen to bands that play this art, but don’t have satanic or at least dark, antichristian or misanthropic lyrics, except some old releases of bands like Enslaved maybe.

Looking at your live shots, you appear to perform covered in blood on occasion. Is this purely for aesthetic value, or more to aid the frenzied ritualistic part of the performance?

– Using blood is an important part of our live rituals. Celebrating a ritual surrounded by the stench of blood and death brings the whole ritual to a higher level, and sometimes we add torches which makes it more intense. It creates a special feeling and if you don’t feel it, you will never understand.

The artwork by Misanthropic Art is absolutely superb. Did you come to him with an idea, or did you give him free reign to create at will from his understanding of your music and themes?

– Chris/Misanthropic Art made also our logo and I had some rough ideas about it and about the layout of the album. I know that whatever we need and whatever we want will be great, cause I know Chris and his art for many, many years now. We also sent him some advance tracks for inspiration, I think that’s also important for an artist to listen to the music for inspiration.

Muerte and Goathammer had another great recent project, the more death metal leaning Deathronation. Do you guys have any other projects on the go, or is Goath now the sole outlet and focus for your creative force? Do you feel it’s necessary to channel all your energies into one project?

– Yes, we were both part of Deathronation and even Serrator helped us for the last gigs we played, but we quit couple of months ago. Serrator and Muerte have still some other bands, Goathammer is now focused on Goath only. Doesn’t matter if we are involved in other bands and projects Goath is our main band and the one we are focused on 100%.

Your sound is deliriously old school, you can hear the classic ’90s black/death metal influences within. How do you feel about the modern-day evolution and interpretation of the Black Metal art form, and are there any ‘newer’ artists you listen to or feel an affinity with?